Category Archives: Violence Against Women

“You don’t consider rape a security threat…Rape here is so common…It’s cultural.” After reading that quote, are you stunned? Well, if your reaction is a blank stare, a furrowed eyebrow, and a thought somewhere along the lines of, “who in their right mind would think rape is cultural,” you are thinking clearly and, might I […]

So much of the advice out there about how to prevent sexual assault is usually directed towards the victims who are mostly women. Something about that seems backwards. Why is all the responsibility still being put on women to “prevent” getting assaulted? I think that more of those conversations need to be directed at the […]

The previous blog mentioned the Women’s Center’s upcoming book discussion this fall on Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. I just finished reading the first book in the trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and I can’t wait to read the other two books. Larsson’s development of the character Lisbeth Salander is brilliant. She’s mysterious, yet […]

For the past week now, I have been training with MOCSA to become a volunteer assisting victims of sexual violence. MOCSA, Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault, is an organization which serves individuals who suffered from any form of sexual violence. Their mission is to lessen the ill effects of sexual assault and abuse through […]

What would you do if you saw a woman being battered? Would you do something – maybe call the police? Or would you just ignore it and think that it wasn’t any of your business? You may think that you would try to intervene. But are you sure? This question came up in a recent […]

The following article originally appeared on the author’s Man Up! blog and has been reposted with the author’s permission. David Belt is the Man Up! Program Coordinator for the Missouri Organization to Counter Sexual Assault. Working in the field of sexual violence prevention, we regularly bump up against men (and women) that – though they […]

I recently read an article that talked about how victim-blaming attitudes are still so prevalent. The article began by talking about the rape case in Australia where the man was acquitted based on the fact that the girl was wearing skinny jeans. The defense’s argument was that the perpetrator could not have removed the jeans […]

“Why didn’t she just leave?” “How could she stay with him?” These are the kind of questions that one hears when someone admits to being in an abusive relationship or when someone hears about a woman who wasn’t able to leave and either she or her abuser ended up dead. Understanding why women stay in […]

The sex slavery in Congo has taken the lives of so many innocent women. The war has caused a rape epidemic. Rape is used as a violent weapon in the fight for power and in the instillation of fear in everyone. By implementing fear, soldiers are abusing the women in their country. Women and girls […]

On February 17 and 18, the UMKC Women’s Center hosted performances of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. The cast was made up of twenty-two beautiful women who performed twenty-two of Ensler’s Monologues. On each night of the show nearly 200 tickets were sold, and a standing ovation was given. After the show some audience members […]